Book 12: Chapter 71: Like A Mountain

In contrast to the chaos and violence he’d experienced when arriving at Emperor’s Bay, leaving the city seemed strangely quiet to Sen. It was almost as if the entire city was holding its breath. Not that he was complaining about that. If fear was keeping people from doing foolish things that would require him to kill them, he was all for it. Of course, quiet wasn’t quite the same thing as calm. An army setting out from a city wasn’t a calm thing. Efficient, perhaps, but never calm. There were too many bodies in motion for that. Every other second, someone was bellowing an order. Horses were whinnying. Cart wheels were creaking. All of that on top of the general din of thousands of feet, the rustling of countless articles of clothing, and the occasional clank of metal on metal from somewhere.

The cultivators, on the other hand, were far less orderly but much quieter. All of their gear was stowed away in storage treasures. Qinggong techniques made their footsteps as light as feathers on the snow. Even that, however, created its own distraction. So many qi techniques in use so close by had Sen constantly wanting to turn his head to look.

I let myself forget about all of that

, he thought. It was a tricky thing to balance. He couldn’t be whipping his head back and forth constantly to check what was happening. On the other hand, it was a very dangerous habit to ignore it when qi techniques were in use nearby. Disregard something like that at the wrong time, and he could find himself badly injured in a battle.

It took most of a day before he started to remember how he’d balanced those things on the march to Emperor’s Bay. It was largely a matter of remaining

aware

without giving it active focus. His spiritual sense was more than good enough to warn him if a technique was coming his way. Maintaining that nebulous awareness wasn’t something he’d practiced for years at a time. That made it an easy thing to let go of when he didn’t need it, and he hadn’t needed it in the city.

That might not be true again for years

, he realized. Even if they did enter cities in the south, he’d have to treat them as being just as dangerous as the wilds. Regardless of Master Feng and Uncle Kho’s announcements, he wasn’t expecting to be welcomed warmly.

The first couple weeks of the march went by without any incidents, which was more or less what he’d been expecting. They were covering ground they had already traveled. What violence had been required to pacify the area had already happened. Even Sen’s expansive spiritual sense didn’t alert him to the presence of any spirit beasts. That didn’t mean that there weren’t any. He had encountered one that seemed to be able to

hide

in the same way Sen could

hide

from cultivators. Even if one of them was out there spying on them, though, that emptiness in his spiritual sense did ensure that there wasn’t a fresh army waiting for them.

They didn’t linger near the destroyed port town where they’d found Shui and a meager handful of other survivors. The devastation there wasn’t worse than the devastation they’d found in other places, but it seemed to hang over the army more. Perhaps it was because they’d rescued a few people that the loss of so many others struck everyone more deeply. Even for Sen, who could count his healing of Shui as a victory against all odds, felt no desire to remain within sight of the ruins. Of course, that also marked the last place that the army could consider itself in even nominally safe territory. Everything south of there was marked by uncertainty.

For Sen, it was truly the unknown. The many historical scrolls Uncle Kho had given him to read had discussed the kingdoms there. He’d even had discussions about those nations with Master Feng and Auntie Caihong, who had both traveled in those areas more recently. However, talking and reading about a place wasn’t the same thing as having been there. For all his travel over the last two decades, he’d never been more keenly aware that he’d never actually left the kingdom before. He worried that he wouldn’t understand the customs or that he’d encounter languages he didn’t know. It took almost an hour before the absurdity of that finally sank in.

He wasn’t going there to visit those kingdoms. He meant to conquer them. The people wouldn’t care if he didn’t know their customs or language. The royalty and nobility there might care, but he wasn’t worried about what those groups would think. They would hate him regardless of anything he did or didn’t know. It wasn’t reasonable to expect people he’d likely strip of all power, wealth, and possibly their lives to love him. A voice jarred him from those unpleasant thoughts.

“You’ve been scowling into the distance for hours now,” observed Master Feng, who had navigated his qi platform next to Sen’s. “Has the horizon angered you somehow?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“No. I was just thinking about what might happen in the south.”

Master Feng nodded.

“Understandable. Even predictable, I suppose. Just not particularly useful.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t be planning?” asked Sen.

“

Were

you planning? Or were you worrying?”

“Worrying,” admitted Sen.

“I thought so. You had that kind of expression. Worrying doesn’t help you or anyone else. It’s just your mind trying to eat itself. Even if you were planning, that has limited value as well.”

“It does? In what way?”

“Have you planned things before?” asked Master Feng.

“Of course.”

“Did things go according to your plan even once? Were they ever even close in the end?”

Sen thought that over before he shook his head.

“Sometimes things went sort of according to plan, but not very often.”

“Exactly. People are unpredictable. So are spirit beasts. Sometimes they do inexplicable things when they feel backed into a corner. You can’t plan for that. I mean, some people try, but I’ve never seen it work properly.”

“So, I shouldn’t be planning things?”

“Not at all,” said Master Feng with a laugh. “If nothing else, it gives all these soldiers the sense that you know what you’re doing.”

“But I

don’t

know what I’m doing.”

“I know that. You know that. A few of the generals might even know that. On the other hand, nobody alive has ever faced something like this before. So, in that sense, nobody really knows what they’re doing. It makes it difficult for anyone to be judgmental about your ideas.”

“I’d feel a lot better about that if I weren’t betting countless people’s lives on those ideas.”

Some of the good cheer on Master Feng’s face fell away. He gave Sen a long look.

“That’s why you’re in charge instead of me. That thought would never have occurred to me.”

“I doubt that,” offered Sen.

“You shouldn’t. That’s part of what it means to grow this old. It’s the same for Kho and Caihong. We can care about

a

person if we invest enough time and effort in them. But we don’t care about people in general. Do you have any idea how many generations of mortals have come and gone during my lifetime? Do you have any idea how many kingdoms and would-be empires have risen and fallen? How many wars I’ve seen or participated in? I’ve never tried to add it all up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these eyes of mine had seen millions die. Literal millions. You can’t care and have your mind survive something like that. You must distance yourself from those lives to preserve your sanity. Unfortunately, it’s a short step from distance to disregard.”

Sen recalled having a similar conversation with Master Feng when this madness had all begun in earnest. At the time, he thought he’d understood what the ancient cultivator had been saying. Sen had left a lot of corpses in his wake since then. Many of them were the corpses of spirit beasts, but not all of them. Some of them had been mortals and cultivators. Many of them had been allies. Sen had, despite himself, tried to distance himself from the troops in the army. He’d also undertaken violent tasks with his own hands to spare himself the knowledge that he’d sent people to die. He was thrashing and frequently failing his way through a problem that simply didn’t exist for Master Feng.

Yet, Sen wasn’t eager to adopt the attitude of his teacher. As ruthless as Sen had made himself become, Master Feng’s way still struck him as cold and even more ruthless. Yet, he understood better now just why his teachers had forced this role onto him. Master Feng could send thousands to their death, and it wouldn’t mean anything to him. He wouldn’t maliciously send them to a pointless end. But he also wouldn’t worry about trying to preserve as many of those lives as possible if he thought the goal was worthwhile. Such a man might well win a war, but at the cost of leaving no one to enjoy the victory.

Sen settled on giving his teacher a half-hearted glare and said, “I hope all of you aren’t waiting around for me to thank you for this joyless task.”

That drew an amused snort from, arguably, the most dangerous man alive.

“I’d be worried about

your

sanity if you did that, Sen.”

The pair lapsed into discussing less fraught subjects when Master Feng abruptly straightened.

“What?” demanded Sen.

“We’ve passed into another kingdom.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be. It’s not like the borders are fixed in stone.”

“Then why do you think we have?”

Master Feng gave him a disapproving look and said, “Check your spiritual sense.”

Sen did as he was told, and he understood. He could sense spirit beasts in the distance. He took a slow breath. He’d spent so much time moving around in the kingdom that a part of him had thought, hoped really, that solving the problem there would be the end of it. That had been a fantasy, and he’d known it, but the hope had persisted in the back of his mind. As he felt the spirit beasts rushing toward them, that hope was dashed. He couldn’t hide from the facts anymore. There had never been another way. The only road to peace was to bathe the continent in blood. The weight of that crashed down on him like a mountain.

“And now it begins, in truth,” whispered Sen.